White Enclosures: Racial Capitalism and Coloniality along the Balkan Route

The Balkans has been rarely framed as a global site of race and coloniality, but Piro Rexhepi's book "White Enclosures" argues that this is due to the perception of the Balkans as colorblind and raceless. Connecting severed colonial histories from the vantage point of body politic, Rexhepi traces past and present geopolitical attempts of walling whiteness, such as efforts to straighten the sexualities of post-Ottoman Muslim subjects, Yugoslav nonaligned solidarities between Muslims of the second and third world, and Roma displacement and contemporary emergence of refugee carceral technologies along the Balkan Route. He also points to the epistemic erasures that maintain the fantasy of whiteness and the disruption emanating from the solidarities between queer- and transpeople that fold the Balkans back into global efforts to resist the politics of racial capitalism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 16 December 2022
Publisher: Duke University Press

The Balkans, with its storied history of empire intersections, has often been overlooked as a significant site of race and coloniality. This is not surprising, considering the prevailing perception of the Balkans as colorblind and raceless, a project that encompasses post-Ottoman racial formations, traverses Socialist modernity, and is renegotiated in the process of postsocialist Euro-Atlantic integration. By linking severed colonial histories through the lens of the body politic, Piro Rexhepi explores the borderland zones of the Balkans to trace past and present geopolitical attempts to wall whiteness. From efforts to straighten the sexualities of post-Ottoman Muslim subjects to Yugoslav nonaligned solidarities between Muslims of the second and third world, to Roma displacement and the contemporary emergence of refugee carceral technologies along the Balkan Route, Rexhepi uncovers not only the epistemic erasures that perpetuate the illusion of whiteness but also the disruptions arising from the solidarities between queer- and transpeople that fold the Balkans back into global efforts to resist the politics of racial capitalism.

The Balkans, with its storied history of empire intersections, has often been overlooked as a significant site of race and coloniality. This is not surprising, considering the prevailing perception of the Balkans as colorblind and raceless, a project that encompasses post-Ottoman racial formations, traverses Socialist modernity, and is renegotiated in the process of postsocialist Euro-Atlantic integration. By linking severed colonial histories through the lens of the body politic, Piro Rexhepi explores the borderland zones of the Balkans to trace past and present geopolitical attempts to wall whiteness. From efforts to straighten the sexualities of post-Ottoman Muslim subjects to Yugoslav nonaligned solidarities between Muslims of the second and third world, to Roma displacement and the contemporary emergence of refugee carceral technologies along the Balkan Route, Rexhepi uncovers not only the epistemic erasures that perpetuate the illusion of whiteness but also the disruptions arising from the solidarities between queer- and transpeople that fold the Balkans back into global efforts to resist the politics of racial capitalism.

Weight: 431g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478016632